Media piracy is the source of a substantial loss of revenue for content creators in the entertainment field. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) estimates that losses due to piracy worldwide for the U.S. motion picture industry may exceed $3 billion on an annual basis. In order to combat the problem of media piracy, it would be useful if there was a way of uniquely identifying each authorized copy of the media in such a way that any unauthorized copy could be traced back to the authorized copy from which it was made. Unfortunately, the process for the high speed, mass duplication of certain types of media, such as film, does not lend itself to the production of hundreds or thousands of unique copies.
A prior method for marking film prints to facilitate forensic identification exists, and was developed by the Motion Picture Association of America and Kodak employees approximately 15 years ago. This technique was known as “Capcoding.” It involved placing visible dots into a spatial matrix on a film frame. Various combinations of the dots/matrix provided approximately 1000 unique codes. The dot matrix was printed onto a release print utilizing a 35 mm slide that had the dot pattern on it. The pattern was printed onto the film at regular intervals. As each print was printed a different 35 mm slide with a different code on it would drop into place.
One problem with this method is that there is no correlation of the dots with scene density/content, so it is possible that some of the dots are not visible, which could result in a misreading of the code. It is also difficult to discern the dots if the (pirated) copy is of poor quality. A further problem is that the 35 mm slides used to print the code are subject to wear and damage, and that the system as designed is limited to approximately 1000 unique codes. As a result of these deficiencies, the Capcode process has not proven popular, although it continues to have some low level of use.
While it is technologically possible to electronically insert a unique identifier, such as a watermark, into a piece of digital media, this must be done N times over to create N uniquely identifiable pieces of media. A number of commercial companies have demonstrated such systems, including IBM, Matsushita Electric, and Digimarc. To add such a mark to a film, the film must first be digitized, the mark inserted, and the digitized film with the added watermark recorded back to film if it is to be projected. This is an expensive and time consuming process, especially considering that it may be necessary to make thousands of uniquely identifiable copies of the media.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for forming unique copies of media assets for subsequent identification.
It is a further object to provide such a method while minimizing the cost and time associated with marking in the duplication process to permit efficient mass production of a media asset.